


the weight of other lives

by scheherazade



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, multiple AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-29
Updated: 2011-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 18:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are the stories of two boys who grew up together and apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the weight of other lives

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the third edition of [netcord](http://chair-umpire.livejournal.com/10002.html), a tennis rpf anthology.

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."  
–Jonathan Safran Foer 

  

Fernando had a smile like the sun, all restless legs and energy, always wanting to be anywhere but here. His mother would shoo him out of the kitchen, fearing for her pots and pans. In weedy parks and overgrown lots he practiced the kicks, tricks, flicks he'd seen the pros do on TV. Ronaldo, Laudrup. Hierro. Real Madrid versus Barcelona. Lost in the imagined cheers of the Bernabeu, he overshot the makeshift goal. He ran, climbed fences that had once kept him penned in; now they were no match for a teenager's gangly legs. 

Feliciano often found him like this. He would be on the way to his math tutor's home, and Fernando would be walking down the street with a soccer ball dusty under his arm. 

"Feli," he'd say, "let's go play tennis."

"I have tutoring."

"But it's vacation!"

"I know." Feliciano would look down at his shoes, scuff the pavement with leather soles. "I'll come by your parents' restaurant later. Will you be there?"

"Yeah." Fernando's happiness was like summer, lazy and warm. "Okay, cool."

Feliciano would watch him walk away, Fernando not looking back even once. His t-shirt was too large for his lanky frame and the ball kept getting away from him as he tried to dribble it down the street. 

Sometimes Feliciano caught himself wondering if he could do better. No one had ever thought to ask him if he wanted to be better at sports. He did well in school. At fourteen, he had eyes like the stars and a smile that could break your heart. His mother loved him, her beautiful son. His tutors loved him. Girls giggled behind his back, and he hated them.

Señora Verdasco treated Feliciano like one of her boys. She smelled of rice and fresh herbs, pinched his arms and clucked her tongue. Skin and bones, was always her verdict as she heaped extra helpings onto his plate. Fernando would try to steal his food, and Feliciano let him. Whatever they couldn't finish, they snuck upstairs to snack on while playing video games in Fernando's room.

One afternoon, Fernando was stuffing fruit tarts into his mouth when he made a sudden, choked sound. Feliciano dropped his controller. But Fernando had only been trying to speak. 

"I 'most forgot," he mumbled, mouth still full. He swallowed. "Hang on."

He dug around in the mess at the foot of his bed and came up with a box. A shoebox, Feliciano thought as Fernando held it out.

"Here," he was saying. "Open it."

Feliciano lifted the lid and found a pair of tennis shoes inside. Plain white, neatly laced. He traced the logo hesitantly. Fernando was watching him, practically vibrating with some contained glee as he waited for a reaction.

"They're nice," Feliciano said to be polite. "When did you get them?"

"No, they're for you!" Fernando blurted. "Come on, try them! You're the same size as me, right?"

Feliciano stared, and Fernando laughed at his stunned expression. Fernando had noticed that his friend didn't own any decent sporting shoes. So when he'd gotten a pair of hand-me-downs from an older cousin who'd worn these only once, he'd decided to surprise Feliciano. 

This way, he figured, they could play tennis together, and Feliciano wouldn't have to keep studying all the time. 

But Feliciano said, "I don't have a racquet."

"I'll lend you one of mine."

Feliciano said, "I don't know how to play."

"It's easy, don't worry." 

Feliciano still didn't look convinced. 

"I'll teach you," Fernando offered.

Feliciano finally smiled then. "Okay," he said.

 

 

 

"You ever dream about this," Fernando asks, "when you were a kid?"

Feliciano reloads his gun in the dark, the motions as familiar as breathing. The power's been cut for this entire city block, but they can still hear the gunshots coming from the streets below their apartment. No one dreams of fighting the drug cartel's wars; or if they do, the nightmare wakes them before too long.

"You're still a kid," he tells Fernando.

"Fuck you, I'm nineteen next week."

But his voice falters. Feliciano closes his eyes; reaches for Fernando in the dark, finds the lapels of his shirt and pulls him in. Fernando's breaths are coming short and fast. Feliciano crushes them back into his mouth with a kiss, memorizes the hard lines of his body. The bruising metal of the gun hidden beneath his coat.

Fernando's hands come up to thread through his hair. Feliciano pushes him away.

"I told you we should've celebrated my birthday last night," Fernando says once he's gotten his breathing under control. 

"I told you not to get involved."

"And I told you I didn't care. Still don't. You were the best decision I ever made."

A woman's shrieking splits the staccato silence, ends abruptly with the _rat-tat-tat_ of gunfire. The sounds are louder, closer.

"I hope you live to regret it," Feliciano says.

Fernando's fingers wrap tentatively around his wrist. "I hope not."

His lips are soft against Feliciano's cheek. Feliciano doesn't argue, just leans into it. Because yeah—he did use to dream of this, of a warm smile and arms to welcome him home. 

"I'd rather have just this moment," Fernando is saying, "than grow old without you."

Feliciano breathes, "I know," and kisses him one last time.

 

 

 

The clock on the wall read 10:49, and the office hummed with that curious sound of vacancy. 

David and Tommy had walked by his cubicle on their way out earlier. Was he _still_ not done with his fashion column? Fernando just waved them on ahead with a wry grin. He never _actually_ missed his deadlines, no worries; enjoy your evening with Juanca and all that. Which resulted in Tommy having to all but drag David to the elevator, the latter protesting that it was not— _they_ were _not_ , and Fernando had no right, _no right_ , damn you to the _depths of GQ hell, Verdasco_. 

It had been funny right up until Juan Carlos himself walked by not two minutes later and gave Fernando a withering look. As he knotted up his scarf. How that man made Burberry look menacing, Fernando would never know. But he'd be lying if he said he hadn't cowered behind his headphones.

He still had those on, though his laptop had long since entered sleep mode. 10:50. He checked his phone for new messages, listened for sounds of life beyond the water bubbler and the printer's sleepy rumblings. Nothing. 

Fernando got up and stretched his arms, wincing at a slight crick in his neck. Professional risk, he supposed. Slinging his jacket over one shoulder, he strolled over to the lone office on the floor with its lights on and poked his head in.

Feliciano glanced up. "What are you still doing here?"

"Saying hi, for one. Making sure you don't kill yourself, for two." Fernando helped himself to the only other chair in Feliciano's office. "It's nearly eleven, you know."

"And?"

"It's New Year's Eve."

"The party's down at the Regina, not here."

"I know," Fernando said patiently.

That made Feliciano pause and actually look away from his computer screen. His expression was wary; Fernando did his best to radiate trustworthiness. That, and sex appeal. Feliciano narrowed his eyes.

"What do you want?" he asked. "If you need another deadline extension, go ask Rafa yourself. It's not my fault you accidentally slept with our copy editor's girlfriend."

"They weren't dating at the time! I mean." Fernando cleared his throat. "No. That's not what I was going to say. Let's start over. You ask me what I'm doing here—"

"Look, I have a lot of work to do, and I'll probably be here all night again, so if you could just—"

"That's just my point," Fernando cut in. "It's _New Year's Eve_ , Feli. Why are you still _working?_ "

Feliciano glared. "Because we go to press in five days, and my column is still shit. I need to rewrite it."

"Did Costa tell you to rewrite it?"

"No, but—"

"So why are you rewriting it?"

Feliciano threw up his hands— _actually_ threw up his hands—in frustration. "Because! It's shit. Weren't you listening to a thing I said?"

"I've been listening for years," said Fernando. "And here's what I hear: you're a perfectionist, and it's killing you. Which is a shame, because you're gorgeous and all, but it'd be no fun dating a corpse."

"I am not," Feliciano began. Then his mouth snapped shut mid-sentence. "What?"

Fernando unfolded himself from the armchair and walked over to put his hands on Feli's desk. "Come to the party with me?"

"I didn't bring a change of clothes."

"You look fine." Fernando let his eyes flicker over Feli, once. "Scratch that, you look great."

Feliciano fiddled with his keyboard. "I really do have to finish this column."

Fernando groaned. "Feli, please. Listen. You have to believe me when I say that you are the kindest, most gorgeous man I know, as well as the best writer on this entire magazine. You don't have to change your clothes to go to that party, and you don't have to rewrite your column fifty times every week for it to make the rest of us look like amateurs by comparison."

"It doesn't mean anything if I don't put in the effort," Feliciano said quietly.

"You don't have to be perfect."

"I want to be."

"I'd still like you even if you're not," Fernando said. "And honestly, I love talking to you, but I'm not your shrink. I just really want you to go to the party with me and make everybody jealous because my date's hotter than theirs, okay?"

Fernando ducked the paper clip Feliciano threw at his head. "You're just too cheap to call a real escort service."

"I was gunning for 'trophy wife,'" Fernando said once he'd stopped snickering, "but that works, too."

Feliciano threw a wad of paper at him this time, but he got up and grabbed his coat with a wry smile. Fernando couldn't help his grin as he got the door.

"Thank you, by the way," Feliciano said once they were in the elevator.

"Don't mention it." Fernando pressed the button for the ground floor. 

Feliciano watched the doors close. "Are you sure you don't want to be my shrink? Based on that performance, I'd say you're pretty good at it."

"What, talking?" Fernando tried and failed to keep a straight face. "Trust me. I can think of much better uses for our time."

 

 

 

Madrid in February is cold. Blankets aren't much good against the nights. The winter's been short on jobs, but not on snow. 

He makes coffee on the stove in the mornings and shares it with Fernando. Their frost-bitten fingers rough against mittens and porcelain, steam misting around their faces like waking dreams. 

Fernando tries to paint it, sometimes. The steam. The mugs. Coffee and watery sunlight in the windowpanes, the rest of their studio apartment still shrouded in dusk. 

It's fitting, Feliciano thinks, that he always fails. You can't really capture a dream.

He might have tried himself, but his words have frozen up with the ink in his pens. The last bit of poetry he sold was in September. Washing dishes makes barely enough for them to scrape by. Fernando tries to help, but he has his own debts, and an art teacher's salary only stretches so far.

We'll be okay, Fernando will say at least once a week. Things will be better once the winter's over. Everything seems worse when it's cold.

They keep each other warm. Feliciano doesn't call it love-making even in his own mind. What they do just is. A necessity, like coffee. Ink.

He can't think about love when the world already rubs him raw. 

Fernando's smile is crooked like a cross. 

Feliciano doesn't think about loving him.

 

 

 

_Come to New York_

That was all. He refreshed the email app until it threw up an error message in reproach, but that was all Fernando's email said. A summons, as if Feliciano were still at his beck and call. Feliciano resented it.

Yet twenty hours and an interminable flight later, he found himself at JFK listening to his calls going straight to Fernando's voice mail. He should have just gone back to Madrid, Feliciano thought as he tapped out an angry text message.

Not fifteen seconds after he'd sent it, his phone buzzed.

_On my way what gate are you at?_

Feliciano replied with the directions, then sat down on the nearest bench to reconsider his life choices. 

The next thing he knew, it was dark outside and David was shaking him awake. 

"So I guess we can look forward to photos of 'Star Futbolista Asleep At JFK' on the front pages of all the tabloids tomorrow," David said in the cab, smiling. 

Feliciano snorted. "I'm not you."

"You're confusing me with the other Davids."

"Yeah, well, at least you got a call-up."

David looked down at his hands, and Feliciano felt his anger melt away in a flash of guilt. "I didn't mean," he tried.

"You're lucky you texted me when you did," David said, ignoring him. "One hour later and I would've been on a train to Newark."

More guilt. "Did I fuck up your travel plans?"

"No, I had them change my ticket. Don't worry about it."

"Traveling alone?"

David shrugged. "The rest of the guys are already back in Spain, or in LA for a little vacation. I'm going to see my family for a few days before heading back to Milan."

In other words, a day with his family, and two with Juan Carlos in Valencia. Feliciano said nothing; he had no right, really, given he'd just hopped a direct flight from Istanbul for a four-word email. 

"Want to try calling Fer?"

Feliciano did and got voicemail again. He shrugged as he pocketed his phone, "Still nothing. Do you know where he is?"

David shook his head, frowning. "We can wait for him at his place."

"You have a key?"

"No, but his building has a nice lobby, and I met the concierge yesterday."

The building did indeed have a nice lobby, concierge and all, and Feliciano felt distinctly out of place. They perched on the bench by the elevators, Feliciano's overnight bag at their feet. The floors gleamed like mirrors, and his reflection looked frightened. 

"You been here before?" David asked.

Feliciano shook his head. "He just bought this place last month, right?"

"Yeah." David looked down at his phone. "But he's been talking about it for a while."

 _Not to me,_ Feliciano didn't say out loud. 

He remembered how they used to talk about everything, back when they were just a couple of kids kicking a dusty soccer ball around, dreaming of glory. They talked even when Feliciano signed for Getafe, and Fernando went through his two-year slump, which ended with him benchwarming for Nacional in the Premeira Liga. 

Then came Porto, Mourinho, and a new life. Suddenly Barcelona was knocking down the door for him, Arsenal hot on their heels. Real Madrid got him in the end, and not long after they both got their call-ups to the national team. 

That was when everything went wrong, right on the cusp of the best years of their lives. 

"Hey," David was saying softly, one hand on Feliciano's knee, "you okay?"

The lie was easy, rehearsed. "Yeah, just tired."

David didn't look convinced. "I'm going outside to call Fer again. I can't get any bars in here. Be back in a sec."

Feliciano watched him go. He was good at that, he'd learned over the past three years. While Fernando had gone on to impress, match after match, at Real and with the national team, Feliciano had torn a ligament in the first game of the season and soon discovered that the farther you fell, the steeper it got. 

Now Fernando had a swanky penthouse that probably cost more than all their childhood dreams, and Feliciano was looking for cheap accommodations in Istanbul. Because even Getafe could no longer keep him, and Galatasaray were the only askers. He hadn't told anyone yet, not even his family. Not even Fernando, because Fernando hadn't asked. 

He stared at the elevator's gleaming doors. Maybe it would be better to just retire now, bow out with some dignity left to keep for all the long nights ahead. Trying too hard, sometimes, only made it disappear that much faster. 

Fernando was disappearing before his eyes, with every day that went by, every call that went to voicemail, every silence that went unaddressed. 

And yet. Despite everything.

He turned his gaze toward the front doors, waiting for—what? A voice? A face? What would it matter? He knew better than to hope that it might fix anything. He just wanted to see Fernando one more time, that was all. 

They hadn't managed to do much properly lately. They ought to at least attempt a proper goodbye. 

 

 

 

Sometimes he dreams of a day when they are old. He will slip out of bed early Christmas morning to start the coffee and instead find a photo album on the kitchen table, its pages filled with the proof of a life together. 

Photos of them, the first summer they met. Smiles and hands sticky with popsicle juice, the ocean gem blue behind their laughing silhouettes. Feliciano's hair bleached blonde by the sun and waves, Fernando always just a step behind. 

The two letters he had written while in Paris, when weeks had seemed like years in Fernando's absence. 

Memories of their trip to New York, Niagara. Blue ponchos and Fernando's fearless smile, the ring on his finger visible despite how tightly he's holding Feliciano's hand.

Photos of their house when they first moved in, the boxes not yet unpacked. Receipts of the ill-fated paintings they bought at a street auction. Instagramed prints of their action film collection. Post-It notes to each other collected over days and months and years.

But mostly, photos of himself. Reading, smiling, shielding his eyes from the sun; in Madrid, London, Istanbul; younger, older, with grey in his hair.

Two-thirds of the way through, the photos end, replaced instead by a note written in a familiar scrawl:

  
_All these moments when you were perfect to me._  
I leave some space for all those that are yet to come,  
though there couldn't be enough pages in all the world.  


_Love, Fer._  


And that's when he will hear the footsteps on the stairs. Quiet and close, forever approaching. Arms warm around his waist, lips pressed to his cheek.

He reaches for Fernando's hand.


End file.
